Circles of honesty?
Truth, kindness and compassion are stronger when they work together, each are their own virtue but without the other two they are weaker and blunter tools. Truth without kindness is brutal, there might be occasions when it is necessary but it usually just stops people from hearing you as they become defensive rather than open to your message. Kindness without truth can just enable people to carry on doing what they are doing with the same disastrous consequences, just as compassion without truth can ignore the underlying issues especially your own. Each virtue comes from a place of love but without a full set of armour you are just as vulnerable as being naked and fearful in a world that requires every ounce of strength to actually make a difference.
Which in an universe of cause and effect is the reason for virtue in the first place, we can make a difference, the choice is whether you will be a cause of better actions or worse. Whilst we can never be certain that our actions are having positive effects, it is the pursuit of positive outcomes that drives a good life, and it is the process of learning to become more skilful and elegant in those goals that drives a life of learning and growth as a being of consciousness. We make mistakes and we learn to do better in the future, we can see the effect of brutal honesty and see the positive and negative effects that it has, it has no special virtue other than the effectiveness as a tool to do good in the world.
If you are doing harm with the truth, you are not being skilful in the use of that tool, it is using a sledgehammer as a baton to conduct an orchestra and expecting sweet music, but instead of guiding them, you are just hitting the violinist repeatedly over the head (pretty sure that is against union rules). It is easy to see how the truth provokes fear being told that your violin playing is out of tune and tempo, that you are not even in the top hundred greatest player alive, that you are graceless, might be true but it does not encourage you to get better, it does not connect you to a place of love where you are supported to be your best self.
That is where compassion comes in, not patronising them like a little kid, you can do anything and here is a gold star for turning up sort of way, and it is not a polite form of being embarrassed for someone's lack of skill rather it is the honest memory of sucking at doing something for a thousand hours before you got better. It is smiling at your own fear and pain, at the effort it took to become competent and then having the bravery to carry on with the faith that you were on a path to somewhere better. Then you use that compassion to become a better teacher and to take on the responsibilities to help someone else to not just become as good as you but to become better.
Which takes a huge amount of kindness both to others and yourself because in doing so you are facing the truth that you are not that special, that what you have done is surpassable, that is the burden of true teaching, you have to be truthful in your judgement especially of yourself. Whilst you can face your own truths in their raw state it requires a huge amount of trust in your judgement that it is honest and skilful, the kind of trust that is almost impossible to measure in others. You can be trustful of your own honesty (though we can certainly lie to ourselves without realising it) to know that it is skill that takes time to assess, you need a track record and the experience of catching your own self-deception, the flaws in your thinking, there is nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks they are right.
That is where stoic questioning comes in, the practice of asking yourself questions, like how every good parent asks themselves all the time whether they are good parents, we need to ask ourselves how we are being dishonest with ourselves, what are the assumptions that we are making and are they valid. Whilst such questioning can not guarantee that we find them all, at least we are trying and practising the art of self-doubt because we have accepted that not just that we can be wrong but that we are probably wrong (and by probably, I mean definitely), which means that we act with the compassion that we must act to mitigate the harm we could do if we are wrong. It is why generals wargame their plans, it gives permission to everyone in the room to question and puts a duty on them to find out the faults in the plan, that everyone must acts with the assumption that it is wrong and that it must be challenged with the whole of their being, which also why it is a closed door operation because honesty requires the kind of trust that only emerges in smaller group, that is why you limit the circle to your trusted lieutenants.
For the practise of honesty there must be trust that there will not be penalties for your frankness if you are going to be as honest as possible. True good and old friends build up a trust that allows for first thoughts to be said so that the filter of manners and social reputation can be dropped, that is the danger of honesty, it can cost you in terms your social status, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person, can get you fired, arrested or even killed, there is such a thing as dead honest, it is not a metaphor. Even being less dramatic, social death can be almost as traumatising, and the fear of it can prevent people being honest for years or even a lifetime, that is why when you find a friend that you can be honest with and express your first, unfiltered and raw thoughts with, they are a blessing that should be valued and treasured.
These circles of honesty can only be established over time, you have to learn to trust those people who you speak freely with, that they will keep your thoughts safe and not use them against you. I recognise the irony that you need privacy and secrets for complete honesty, but we all know this is true, what you tell your partner will be radically different from what you tell your boss. It also explains why every politician lies because they can not trust the circle of people they are talking to express their honest thoughts with them, we do truly get the politicians that we deserve, ones that understand this relationship to the truth, that never admit to being wrong or inconsistent. We can see what happens to people who are honest in public life, they are marginalised and hated, even the dai lama is hated for the act of being faithful to truth.
The price of honesty is paid by those who do not know the rules, that is why, you should always be honest is such dangerous advice if you are unaware of your situation. Even in the progressive group there are an increasing list of things that you can not say or face cancellation, social death and economic consequences, in other country it can include actual death. Being truthful to your thoughts is best done quietly and in the shadows of private conversation, that is where it should be experimented with, tested before you start expanding the circle, and that is the battle, not being truthful but how far you can push it out into the world.
Though you should always be as honest as you can with yourself, because that is where lies are most deadly, lying to yourself will kill you, your hopes and dreams, there is no eye of the needle to thread if you do not know where you are going or what you wish to achieve with your truth. As the tool only serves a purpose, if it furthers that purpose, if not, it is not the right tool, that is why you should not only be honest with yourself, but kind and compassionate, what is true for other is also true for yourself, treat yourself as well as you treat other and as an added bonus you are always there to practise on. Which gives a virtuous circle, you practise on yourself for others, and then practise on others so that you can treat yourself well.
It is on the basis of these three tools of honesty, kindness and compassion that you can build a good life that is good for you and those that you care for, a good life that is thoughtful and designed for your particular needs and wants. We use our honesty to explore what is really important to you, you are kind enough to want it for yourself even if it is strange, unconventional or not what is expected of you, and you have the compassion that you are not always going to get it right, that is part of the process of learning and you are on a journey that is not simple or easy. It is by honestly recognising that life is hard and difficult that you can gain the courage to pursue it anyway, to know that the good things are tough and overcoming that hardness is part of what makes life good, that simple truths are only ever half the story and even that honesty is not simple, it changes on circumstances and which circle you are operating within. Life is not simple, neither is the truth, it is a colour that changes with the light of the day and the truth comes in many beautiful different shades, just find the right circles to share it with.
